US Consumer Price Index CPI August 2019

A man pushes his shopping cart past bread for sale at a Walmart Supercenter store in Rosemead, California on May 23, 2019.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Consumer prices slowed in August, rising by a slight 0.1%, reflecting a big drop in the cost of gasoline and other energy products.

The Labor Department says the tiny increase in its consumer price index followed a much bigger 0.3% rise in July which had been driven by a jump in energy prices. With energy costs falling in August for a third month out of the past four, the overall price increase slowed leaving consumer prices rising a modest 1.7% over the past year.